Into the Wild: Meg Pope Anderson '93

If there’s an injured hiker in need of help in the mountains, there are many thoughts that run through Maighdlin Pope Anderson’s mind. Meg, as she is known, is a nurse trained in wilderness medicine. “The idea of wilderness medicine is that you’re out there with only the things in your backpack and maybe the things in the injured person’s backpack,” says the 1993 Catalina graduate. “You’re not going to be traveling with a ton of splints and the perfect amount of medication, so what can you do, what can you improvise, what can you make that would work? Can I walk this person out, or do I need to call for a helicopter? Are they close to death, or can we manage them? It’s also being aware in a given situation what kind of injuries to expect. If somebody falls or is at the bottom of a cliff, we’d be worried that they have a traumatic brain injury or possibly a spinal cord injury. If there’s a storm in the area, we could be worried that they got hit by lightning. It’s using our knowledge of the environment and navigation and outdoor pursuits to understand what people might be going through.”

Meg is a member of the Wilderness Medical Society and recently became a Fellow of the Academy of Wilderness Medicine, a designation that honors her extensive training and experience in the field. In addition, she is part of the Allegheny Mountain Rescue Group, a volunteer search and rescue team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and is a nurse practitioner for the region’s Disaster Medical Assistance Team for the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

Meg started her career in the science lab. After earning her bachelor’s degree in physics from UC Santa Cruz, she worked in labs at the University of York and the University of Maryland, studying protein malformations. She enjoyed the work but wanted to be “closer to the action,” as she puts it. She earned her B.S. in nursing from Francis Marion University in South Carolina, and began her nursing career in the neurotrauma ICU at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). She soon became an acute care nurse practitioner, earning both a master’s degree and a doctorate, and for five years taught at the UPMC School of Nursing, serving as program director for the last year and a half. She is currently the advanced practice provider supervisor for the cardiac team at UPMC.

Working in wilderness medicine is a natural fit for Meg, who has always embraced the outdoors as an important part of her life. She grew up on a ranch in Deep Springs, California, an isolated desert community about 20 miles from Bishop near the Nevada border. In the summers during high school, she worked as a guide in the nearby mountains taking people deep into the backcountry with pack horses and mules. She has gone backpacking in mountain ranges across the United States and has introduced her three children to the activity.

Last year, Meg joined the Wilderness Medical Society on a trip to Nepal, where participants hiked in the Himalayan foothills and attended the opening of a rural hospital that the society helped to fund and build. She became involved with a nonprofit called Musa Musala, which advocates for safe and culturally appropriate travel and provides scholarships to residents from the area who want to attend nursing school in Kathmandu. She currently serves on the organization’s board of directors.

Meg is also on the board of directors for her search and rescue team, which gets called out 30 to 40 times a year to help search for missing persons of all kinds— from children with autism to older persons with dementia to hunters who have become disoriented. Recently, the team received national certification to assist with child abduction response. Meg says, “When it comes down to it, search and rescue is boots on the ground, hiking up hills through the thorns to make sure you have all the ground covered. A huge part of it is search management and trying to decide the most efficient way to use our resources to have the highest possibility of finding this person.”

As a student at Santa Catalina, Meg got a taste of teamwork and management—two skills that have proved essential throughout her career. She played field hockey, competed in track and cross country, sang in the choir, and participated in theatre on stage and off, including as stage manager. “One of the most important skills that I never had an opportunity to develop until I got to Santa Catalina was working on a team and creating something with a group of people who have different ideas about how to get to the end, but working well together,” she says. She also credits English teacher Mr. Don Hackling with teaching her how to question everything and effectively communicate her thoughts. “All of those things helped me feel more confident in my ability to go out in the world and put my ideas to the test,” she says.

Meg continues to take on more responsibility with each of her side projects. She is helping to formulate clinical practice guidelines for the Wilderness Medical Society, and hopes to build an outreach program for the search and rescue team to involve more people from within Pittsburgh city limits. She is well suited for all of her endeavors. “For me, where all of my experience and expertise and personal talents have gone is to seeing the big picture and solving the big puzzles,” she says.

In the meantime, if you happen to get lost in Meg’s neck of the woods, you can expect to be found.